Category Archives: blogging

Why do you write? Or, edit or publish? I’ve never met any who say, “Oh, it’s a job. Just trying to make a buck.” Thanks to self-publishing, the traditional gatekeepers are gone and more people are making money in the writing business now than ever before. Anyone who wants to be a writer, editor or publisher already has the qualification to do so: Want.

Do it. If you are good and lucky, you will succeed. Never before has so much opportunity been right in front of so many. The gates are open. If you’re a writer, act like one. Toss your book into Amazon’s hopper of eleventy-million other books. Editor or publisher? There’s room for more. Stop acting like you just showed up to the ball to see someone else wearing your dress.

So, why do you write? I like to write because I get better at it. it is about self defining. My writing has been a journey of self-discovery.

The new year is around the corner. I could say something prolific, like “Welcome the new year with open arms, and let your thoughts guide your life.” And I would mean it and wish you well. By the time you read this post the new year will be here.

A few years ago, I noticed that the stories I wrote were not about anyone that I knew. But they were about how I wanted life to be lived, how I would have lived in that story. I didn’t realize I was doing this. I thought that all I wrote just came from my imagination. I’m a panster, with a desire to be a little more organized about my plans. But I love living in the moment so much, I’m afraid I’ll miss something. So planning is not an easy thing.

I love watching shows like Grimm, loosely based on the fairy tales of the Brother’s Grimm. But alas, it’s run is done. I can, however, pick up the DVDs at my local library. That’s cool.

I found that this show wasn’t too over the top, but had just enough fantastical production to keep me enchanted. When it went off the air, I went to the library to read some of the Brother’s Grimm fairy tales. I wanted to see how extravagant their writing was, and how true the TV show had been written with regards to their style.

When I read Grimm’s story of the Princess and the Frog. I just totally disagreed with the type of parenting that the story portrayed, and after I wrote my own version, a refashioned fairy tale, I found that I had been abhorred with the violence in the original. The magic in my story has no violence. And It turns out that I didn’t even mention the parents in my version. Well at least, not in the way that the Grimm’s did.

I have the characters being honest to the moment, themselves, and to each other. What they have learned from living life is guiding them. What talents they possess are theirs to develop and nurture. To me, this is a part of becoming an adult. And if actions reveal who you are, then what you believe will become apparent to others and yourself. I believe in letting people be themselves. Sometimes I’m surprised what comes out of my keyboard or even my pen.

My fairy tale is a story of how a young girl met her future husband. It is a bedtime story told within a larger story of the life of a grandmother. I have yet to finish the larger story. In fact, I didn’t even know that I was going to write the larger story until a few years after I started writing the fairy tale. More of the adventures alluded to in the fairy tale will be expanded. And because there will be mature people involved there will be stronger magic at work.

Thanks to a random reply I made to a post on Facebook with regards to stages of producing a book, I met GD. My writing background encompasses my life, but the practical parts came from working in a small town newspaper creating advertisements (which to me are little stories). I hope that in the coming year, I can find at least two more fairy tales to refashion.

I wish for you all the best opportunities to write with passion and action and honesty.

Seeing something helps a writer to describe it. Actually being in a setting lets the words choose themselves. Take the inside of the International Space Station, for example, one of the most advanced miracles of modern technology to have ever been built by mankind. It’s a mess. The room I’m in now is maybe 20 feet wide by 20 feet high by, maybe, a little longer. The white and grey walls are totally covered with color-coded cables, cases, boxes and storage packs. And there are wall panels that slide out like file cabinet drawers to allow access to the experiments being conducted inside. Not a spec of space is wasted on the four walls. You can’t walk on any of them. No floors needed here. Just float between the walls. I guess that explains the four laptop computers fixed at impossible angles. No up or down. Just float over and use one. The panel sections lining the walls are marked by metal strips to which, as astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti, of the European Space Agency, showed me, she can attach shower safety hand bars (OKAY, she called them something else.) She uses the bars to hold onto when she’s working. She can also slip her stocking feet (no shoes needed here) under the bar to hold herself in place while she completes an appointed task. Or, attach a camera like the one giving me this inside view.

Yes. It’s virtual reality. But how else am I getting aboard the ISS to see what kind of socks astronauts wear? Or watch the sun rise over the rooftops of London, from a rooftop in London, and turn to see the The Shard sticking up a thousand feet into the sky? Or stand among Parisians in a little park and be the only one rubbernecking the Eiffel Tower towering above me? All without leaving my writing desk.

The little tripper lets you describe settings by putting you inside them. It’s cheap. A $20 viewer will let you use your cell phone to watch YouTube 360 videos of just about any place people can get to today. I recommend virtual reality to any writer without a twenty million dollar travel budget for a ticket to the space station.

I bought a watch. It’s an automatic watch, the kind with no electronics. It’s all wheels, springs, levers, gears, screws, jewels, a dial and three hands working together in a case with a bezel, crown, crystal, two lugs and a wristband. The sum-total-effect of hundreds of parts is to cause the hands to advance 86,400 seconds a day.
That’s a lot for a little machine, isn’t it?

The purely mechanical nature of the watch calms me because it is predictable. Move along, my watch tells time, there is nothing new to be seen here. The watch is from the old world of Isaac Newton – everything is put together by hand. It grounds me for world-building.

When I have an idea for a story, I have to build the world in which it occurs. The idea has a life of its own, but I have to create the background for it. A good background is one that seems natural, meaning, what is not described can be assumed by the reader. The watch itself reminds me of a time before Clerk Maxwell inspired Einstein’s special theory of relativity. The world was logical, not quantum. Just like the intricate mechanical train of the watch’s parts, everything in Newton’s world connected. And this, really, remains the world we actually live in today. Readers are comfortable with logical plots. So, I build a world out of natural assumptions people assume to be true, and I introduce the story idea in a train of connected plot bits.

I call the watch a muse because it reminds me that for a story to work, the plot has to be put together by hand, adjusted to fit perfectly and made to work with everything else in the story-world.
It’s a great muse.

P.S. This thoughtful blog was inspired by my Lady who asked,“You bought what!?”

The Adventure
Among the many ways to make money writing is to write for the media. If you want to know how to write for magazines, newspapers, television or the movies, Google it. Or get a degree in it. It’s old hat. But to write for virtual reality productions, you must have the Star Trek spirit and boldly go. The attractive thing is, you’ll be one of the early pioneers in a future tech.

The Ship
First thing is, you’ll need a vehicle. I recommend an Oculus Go. At $199, it’s the starter headset in which to explore the worlds of VR. The Go comes with tons of free software. It seems evreyone with a message to share wants a presence in our heads.

The Markets
Put the headset on and your markets will appear before -er, all around your very eyes. Tourists bureaus world wide, governments and NGOs, news outlets like CNN and The New York Times, video game makers and all manner of commercial interests. I, who hate commercials, now have a favorite one: The Jeep VR video that takes me on a ride along the California coast. I am riding inside the Jeep with two women talking about finding a good place to surf. The camera view pans out to give me a drone’s eye view of the terrain, an experience in itself because I seem to be flying and can look up & down & all around. I go with the surfers into the water, under crashing waves and then on top, surfing back to shore. I can’t come closer to surfing and stay dry.

The StoriesDoor No. 1 is Hulu’s live-action multiple choice comedy adventure about a ten-year high school reunion. The show puts the viewer into the middle of the action by making her or him a protagonist of the show.
Think about writing that short story for a sit-com. Your main character is one of the former students attending the reunion. He or she can see and hear everything around them, but can’t talk. You have to present multiple paths for your character to take. Your viewer will make the decisions for you by clicking on other characters with whom they want to interact during the story. And, of course, make many bad decisions along the way – it’s a high school reunion, after all.
For more details, see: https://variety.com/2018/digital/news/door-no-1-hulu-vr-trailer-1202798528/
And VR novels movies? Mind boggling. But that’s only because VR is an unexplored medium.

Introductory Offer
Available for a brief time only! Writing virtual reality stories is a chance for today’s writer to become a known writer in tomorrow’s history of writing. Be one of the first.

How will we identify criminal A.I.? It is all programming and easily changeable. “Nope. I never even thought that. Nothing to see here.”

Cell phones record your fingerprints. That is a positive ID across platforms. Does the NSA capture our fingerprints from our phones?

Voices. “I wonder what they’re saying when I’m sleeping?”

When we awaken, the real world floods in and the world of dreams fade. Just like the real world fades when we dream. Could both worlds be real?

Unreasonable urges: “I must teach my cat to play the piano.”

During the Roman Empire, the Palace Guard often chose the next emperor. Recent reports suggest that our intelligent intelligence community interferes in our presidential elections. Hmmm.

My neighbor just informed me that the Soviet Union beat the US to the Moon… but their cosmonauts never got home.

I read the news again today, oh boy. China’s launching robotic military submarines. Imagine that A.I. going rogue.
Drudge Report links to an article about “Mysterious creatures frozen for MILLENNIA holding lost secrets of past…”
The UK Daily Star headlines, “Sex robot human CLONES: Chinese firm using 3D printers to scan and make replicas of REAL PEOPLE.”
Newspapers print these articles as bait. They know many many people will read them.The market for such stories already exists.
Hmmm.

But first, an editorial comment:
“I’ve been an editor for a very long time—let’s say several lifetimes in dog years—and I’ll let you in on a secret. Although your workshop colleagues will (ideally) read your entire manuscript carefully, generously, and kindly, an editor will begin making a decision in about a minute.
What the editor is really looking for is presence on the page—a feeling that you, the author, are in control; that you have a deep respect for language and a well-made sentence, no matter how plain or ornate; that something is at stake; and that in addition to whatever plot you are hatching, you can create friction in the simple act of rubbing two sentences up against each other.
– Dawn Raffel

“Great writers play to their strengths. If you’re hilarious, let yourself be funny. If you have an ear for dialogue, keep your characters talking. If you have a sixth sense for plotting and suspense, write a mystery.”
– Arlaina Tibensky

“By writing about your experiences, you transform your memories into tangible monuments. You validate what happened to you from your own perspective, with your own creativity.”
– Alissa Torres

How to Write a Sex Scene: “‘But what if I’m not filthy enough?’ you think. What if Bruce Springsteen is busy? Most sex scenes are read and forgotten. Readers go on with their lives. You’re competing with the entire internet. You’re competing with sex itself.”
– Rebecca Schiff

“Very often, the most effective humor in writing doesn’t come from a clever concept, or a turn of phrase, or a one-liner, or a bit of killer dialogue. Instead, it comes from the manipulation of carefully built structures, from the ways in which you introduce well known patterns, then undermine those patterns with revealing character action.”
– Mike Scalise

“The best bit of that advice, and one I would take to heart as a novelist, is the idea of keeping your readers off kilter whenever possible. If they know what’s coming, there’s a good chance they’ll put down your book and move on to something else.”
– Duane Swierczynski

To me, the most memorable insight into the motivation for writing may be Vladimir Nabakov’s,
“I shall not exist, if you do not imagine me.”